KANYABAYONGA, Congo – With piles of fresh bullet casings littering its main road, its shops and homes thoroughly looted and virtually all of its population hiding in the bush, this town nestled in Congo's eastern jungle region illustrates how close Congo has come to slipping back into full-fledged war.

Just a week ago, Kanyabayonga was a teeming town of more than 30,000 people. On Friday afternoon, after several days of fierce clashes, Kanyabayonga was virtually abandoned, a ghost town except for some brave souls who sneaked back to check on their homes and a few dozen ragtag soldiers who had been ordered to stay behind to guard the place.

The fighting, between newly dispatched government troops and Congolese rebels who are supposed to be on the government's side, has raised fears of a renewal of the warfare that broke out in eastern Congo in August 1998. As many as 3.8 million people have died in that conflict, according to a new survey by the International Rescue Committee, a nonprofit agency that helps refugees.

And even though many peace deals have been signed and the United Nations has dispatched nearly 11,000 peacekeepers to the area, more than 31,000 civilians continue to die monthly here, from disease and malnutrition, as well as from machetes and AK-47s.

The destruction in and around Kanyabayonga is profound. A U.N. assessment found that four villages in the area had been destroyed and two others heavily damaged, while eight civilians had been killed and 30 kidnapped in the fighting.

Every last thing in Kanyabayonga has been looted, including pharmacies, general stores and the huts that were hurriedly abandoned.

"At least I'm alive," said an old woman who came back to the town Friday to find that she had nothing left. "I thank God at least for that."

The fighting in Congo's precarious North Kivu region began when officials in Kinshasa, the capital, sent troops to Kanyabayonga to ensure that neighboring Rwanda did not make good on President Paul Kagame's recent threat to invade Congo's east.

Rwanda's Tutsi-led government has invaded Congo three times in the past decade, ostensibly to root out rival Hutu extremists who roam Congo's eastern border. It was Hutu extremists who stoked ethnic resentments that resulted in a massacre of nearly 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in 1994.

The United Nations has accused Kagame's forces of carrying out raids in recent weeks. Kagame denies that but says his country has suffered 11 rocket attacks in the last month from extremists on the Congo side and may cross the border again, if provoked.

The other set of troops at Kanyabayonga are part of the Congolese army, as well, on paper at least. But they are former rebels who used to fight for the Rwanda-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy.

The party has joined the government, but these dissidents say they are compelled to defend Congo's sizable population of Kinyarwanda speakers, people who share a language and a culture with Rwandans but are Congolese.

The extent of Rwanda's role in the revolt remains unclear, although the Congolese government says it has detained Rwandan soldiers on the Congolese side of the border. Col. Patrick Colas des Francs, chief of staff of the U.N. forces in Congo, told reporters this week that information showed the fighting to be primarily "an inter-Congolese affair."

To quell the latest violence, a delegation of top government officials from Kinshasa arrived Friday in Goma, the main city of eastern Congo, to meet with Kinyarwanda-speaking community leaders who have backed the military revolt.